Leading foreign companies intend to invest in ICT sector

Foreign investors, Tuesday, expressed their intent to invest in Pakistan’s rapidly growing ICT sector.
A three member delegation of foreign investors in ICT sector held a detailed meeting with Minister of State for IT & Telecom Anusha Rahman. The delegation appreciated the vision of the government and Minister for IT and hailed all the initiatives being carried out by the Minister of IT & Telecom for development of ICTs in the region. During meeting they expressed their keenness to contribute in the development of ICTs through investment.
The delegation comprising of Mr. Jan Bolz (IT investor from Germany), Dr. Bernhard Kaleem (an Austrian ICT investor and Mr. Rabeel Warraich, CEO Sarmayacar apprised the Minister about their respective company’s profile and expressed their keen interest to further invest in Pakistan’s rapidly growing ICT sector.
Anusha Rahman shared with the delegates, the initiatives that her government is pursuing for “Accelerated Digitalization” with special emphasis on bridging broadband divide to spur socio economic growth across the country.
Anusha Rehman said that recent accelerated development in the arena of ICTs has made Pakistan a very lucrative destination for IT investors. Therefore many local and Foreign investors are contacting us, to join on common ICT Agenda, in a public private mode because we all believe that future of the world is ICTs.
She further said that we are committed to provide next generation broadband connectivity to even remote rural areas of the country through broadband for sustainable development program which is being funded by USF and by 2018, every village with 100 population in the whole country, will be connected.
Minister also shared some key initiatives including ICT for Girls with the delegates. She said that we have initiated an ICT for girls program to increase the employability potential of marginalized young girls. Now Thousands of girls are being trained in coding and computing through @microsoft. Likewise 226 public sector girls schools of Islamabad Capital Territory are being digitized on fast pace.
Anusha Rahman further said that training of young entrepreneurs and ICT graduates startup always remained a policy focus. Therefore the government has established a state of the art “National ICT incubation Centre” in a public private partnership mode In the capital and four more In provincial capitals are In the offing.
The main purpose of this project was to transform innovative ideas of talented young teams into viable and self sustainable, startup companies through appropriate training, mentorship and facilitation and now these initiatives are getting worldwide recognition.